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Garrick Club

The Club was founded in 1855, after a visit by the actor G.V. Brooke, by journalists, critics and literary men such as the poet R.H. Horne, James Smith and James Neild, who envisaged a 'place of rendezvous' where 'men of refined minds and cultivated tastes' could discuss dramatic literature and produce amateur theatricals. The Club presented plays and incidental pieces with some success, but was marked by a lack of 'cordial co-operation' among the members and considerable turnover of office-bearers. Never prosperous enough to have a clubhouse, the Garrick staged theatrical productions through the 1860s but had expired by about 1870.

Paul De Serville